Notification Rule

A notification rule says when the system should tell somebody something: on a date worked out from a record, or the moment a record is created or changed. The rule names the screen, the wording to send, who it goes to, and optionally a condition that has to be true first.

Where

Organization and Setup › Setup › Notification Rule

Who uses it

The implementation consultant, one rule per notification the client wants

When

After the wording exists on Message Notification

Needs first

Message Notification

What it is for

Clients ask for two different kinds of reminder, and this one screen covers both.

The first is a date. Remind the line manager while a probation is still running. Chase HR once a contract has expired and nobody has renewed it. The rule watches a date on the record and notifies while that date is still ahead, or once it has gone past.

The second is an event. Tell the department head the moment a leave request is created. Tell payroll when a loan record is edited. There is no date here, only the thing that just happened.

Which of the two you get is the Notification Category, and the screen shows only the fields that kind of rule needs - it redraws the moment you pick it. A date rule asks which date, whether before or after, at what time of day and how often. An event rule asks which actions count.

A screen can have as many rules as the client needs: a reminder while something is open and a chase once it is late are two rules on the same screen, not one.

A rule can also carry conditions, so that it fires only for the records the client cares about - only for the factory, only when the amount is above a limit. And it carries its own list of recipients, which can be a named user, a whole user group, or a plain email address for somebody who has no login.

Every field, in plain words

Header

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Notification Rule	Your short code for the rule.	PROB-7DAY	Required.
Name	What the rule is called in the list.	Probation ending in 7 days	Required.
Process Code	The screen the rule watches.	Employee Organization Assignment	Required. Picked from the list of screens. A screen may have several rules.
Notification Template	The wording that gets sent.	Probation ending reminder	Picked from Message Notification. Set the wording up there first.
Notification Category	Whether the rule runs on a date or on an event.	Base On Date	Required - the save refuses without it. D Base On Date, E Base On Event.
Block	The off switch for the rule.	Leave it clear	Tick it to stop the rule sending without deleting it. A company with no rules at all sends nothing, which is deliberate.

If the category is Base On Date

A date rule is not sent by anybody saving anything. The system wakes up through the day, looks at every record on the watched screen, keeps the ones whose date is still ahead or already past, checks the conditions, and sends. One notification per rule per day, whatever time the rule was allowed to run.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Field	Which date on that screen the rule watches.	Probation end date	Required for a date rule - the save refuses without it, because the rule cannot find a record otherwise. Picked from the chosen screen's own field list.
Day	Whether the rule is about a date still coming or one already gone.	Before	Before while the date is still ahead, so it reminds about something open. After once the date has passed, so it chases something overdue. It is a direction, not a number of days.
Execution Date	The date the rule starts from.	01 Nov 2026	A date, not a count of days. Nothing goes out before it. Week, Month and Once also take their weekday, their day of the month and their one date from this.
Execution Time	What time of day the notification goes out.	09:00	Pick a time the recipients are at work. Left empty it goes out at 08:30.
Execution Cycle	How often the rule may send.	Week	Day every day, Week on the same weekday as the Execution Date, Month on the same day of the month, Once only on the Execution Date itself. Left empty it is every day.
Last Sent	The day this rule last sent.	Filled in by the system	Read only. It is what keeps the rule to one notification a day, and it is the first thing to look at when somebody says nothing arrived.

There is no "seven days before"

This is the part to be clear about at implementation, because clients ask for it in days and the screen does not work in days.

A Before rule is about every record whose date is still ahead - it does not wait until the date is a week away. If the cycle is Day it reminds every day until the date arrives. What carries the number is the wording: the message can say how many days are left, so "your probation ends in 23 days" and "in 2 days" come from the same rule.

If a daily reminder is too much, narrow it with the Execution Cycle. Week is usually what the client actually wants: one reminder a week while the thing is open, on the weekday the Execution Date falls on.

If the category is Base On Event

Tick the actions on that screen that should raise the notification. At least one is required - the save refuses a rule with none, because it would look configured and send nothing.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
On Create	A new record is created.	Tick it for a request that somebody has to see straight away.
On Edit	An existing record is changed.	Tick it where a change matters as much as the original, such as an amount being revised.
On View	Somebody opens the record.	Leave it off unless the client is auditing who looked at what.
On Delete	A record is deleted.	Tick it for anything a client wants a trail of.
On Reverse	A record is reversed.	Tick it so the people told about the original are told it has been undone.

Trigger Condition

Optional. Leave it empty and the rule fires for every record on that screen.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Trigger Rule	How this line joins the one before it.	When on the first line, And or OR after that	When for the first condition, And when both must hold, OR when either will do.
Field	Which field on the screen the condition tests.	Department	Picked from the chosen screen's own field list.
Condition	The test.	is	See the list below.
Value	What to test against.	Spinning

Condition accepts: =, !=, <, <=, >, >=, is, isn't, starts with, ends with, contains, doesn't contain, is empty, is not empty, between, not between. Use = and the comparisons for numbers and dates, is and isn't for a picked value, the text tests for free text, and between for a range.

Recipients

One line per person or group the notification goes to.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Base On	What kind of recipient this line is.	User Group	US User for one named user, UG User Group for everybody in a group, EM Email for an address outside the system, RC Record Column for whoever is named on the record itself. Record Column works on Base On Date rules only.
Base On Value	Which user, which group, which address, or which column.	The HR Officers group	For User and User Group it is picked from a list. For Email it is typed, because the person has no login. For Record Column it is the field on the watched screen that holds the username or the employee number.

How to configure it

1. Write the wording first on Message Notification, for the same screen. A rule with no wording sends nothing worth reading.
2. Open Notification Rule and create a record. Type the code and the name.
3. Pick the screen the rule watches, then the Notification Template you just wrote.
4. Pick the Notification Category. Base On Date for a reminder, Base On Event for something that happens now. The rest of the screen redraws to match, and neither the screen nor the category locks afterwards.
5. For a date rule, pick the date field, set Before or After, set the date the rule starts from, set the time of day, and choose how often it may send. There is no number of days to type.
6. For an event rule, tick the actions that should raise it. At least one, or the save refuses. On Create alone is right for most requests.
7. If the client only wants the notification for some records, add Trigger Condition lines. Start the first with When.
8. Add the Recipients. A user group is almost always better than a named user, because a named user leaving the company silently stops the notification.
9. Save, then make one real record on the watched screen and check the notification arrives.

Scenarios

"The line manager should know before a probation ends"

A Base On Date rule on the assignment screen. Field is the probation end date, Day is Before, Execution Time 09:00, Execution Cycle Week, and the Execution Date set to a day falling on the weekday the reminder should go out on. Recipient is the user group the line managers are in.

It does not wait until the probation is a week away - it reminds once a week for as long as the probation is still open. Put the days left into the wording on the template, so the manager reads how long they actually have.

"HR must know the moment somebody applies for leave"

A Base On Event rule on the leave request screen with On Create ticked. Recipient is the HR Officers group. No dates at all.

"Only the factory, not the office"

Add a Trigger Condition line: When, the location or department field, is, and the factory value. The rule then fires for factory records and stays quiet for the rest.

"Our labour lawyer has no login but needs the disciplinary notices"

Add a recipient line with Base On set to Email and type the address. The notification is emailed without the person having a user account.

"It should go to whoever the record is about, not to a fixed group"

Add a recipient line with Base On set to Record Column, and Base On Value set to the field on the watched screen that holds the username or the employee number. Each record is then sent to the person named on it, so one rule covers everybody instead of one rule per person. This kind of recipient is read on Base On Date rules only - on an event rule the line is ignored and nobody is addressed.

What it is connected to

• Needs Message Notification for the wording, and the wording must be written for the same screen.
• A screen may have as many rules as the client needs, so a screen that notifies about several different things has one rule for each.
• A Base On Date rule is not sent by anybody saving anything, so it keeps arriving whether or not somebody is logged in.
• The recipient groups come from the user and group setup, not from this screen.

If something looks wrong

• "The save says the screen cannot be empty" - Process Code was left blank. The rule has to watch something.
• "The save asks for the category" - Notification Category was left blank. It decides which half of the screen applies, so nothing else on the rule can be checked without it.
• "The save asks for the field" - a Base On Date rule with no date field on it. There is no record for the rule to look at.
• "The save refuses an event rule that looks complete" - none of the five actions is ticked. A rule raised by nothing would look configured and send nothing.
• "The notification never arrives" - check in this order: Last Sent, which says whether the rule ran at all; whether there is a Notification Template on the rule; whether there is at least one recipient line; and whether the Trigger Condition lines actually match the record you tested with.
• "A date rule sends nothing and Last Sent stays empty" - the Execution Date is still in the future, so the rule has not started. On the Once cycle a rule with no Execution Date never sends at all, because there is no single date for it to send on.
• "It was arriving and then stopped" - Block is ticked on the rule, or the rule was deleted.
• "A merge field came out in the message as the field name itself" - the wording asks for something that rule cannot supply. A date rule and an event rule offer different fields; see Message Notification.
• "Everybody is getting it and only the factory should" - there are no Trigger Condition lines, so the rule fires for every record.
• "The reminder keeps coming every day" - Execution Cycle is empty or set to Day. Week or Month narrows it, and Once sends on the Execution Date only.